Recently significant progress has been made in improving the hard magnetic properties of Nd--Fe--B powders produced by inert gas atomization. Making useful bonded magnets from gas atomized Nd--Fe--B powders, however, has been hampered by the severe degradation of the hard magnetic properties of the bonded magnets after they are made. The degradation occurs mainly after a process for curing a binder in which the powders mixed or coated with the binder and pressed into a desired shape are heated at an elevated temperature (e.g., 175.degree. C.) for a time period sufficient to cure such binder. It is observed, however, that bonded magnets made from powders produced by a melt spinning process do not exhibit such significant degradation of its hard magnetic properties after such curing process.
The present invention provides a bonded magnet made from gas atomized rare earth alloy powders which has good hard magnetic properties after the process for curing the binder.